Today's song is: Southern Cross by Crosby Stills and Nash, 2010
I eat a lot of chicken rice in Bangkok as it is boiled and not fried and therefore not fattening. Thavorn, true to her word, made me the bets chicken rice I have eaten in Thailand. The sauce is what gives it the authentic spicy Thai taste. Pic below:
The countdown to village life continues. However, Thavorn's older children are making the most of their stay in our condo and have become fairly proficient at swimming. Not too bad as they could not swim 6 months ago. I am sure they are going to miss Bangkok when they adjourn back to village life but I think their village friends will make up for Bangkok's sights and sounds, not too mention street food and best of all KFC. Thais everywhere love the Colonel's chicken :-)
Here is a map of Thailand's provinces in case you are wondering where Petchabun is.
I programmed a fair bit today and when not programming I swam with Jaidan in the pool and read my current fantasy, Book 3 of the Anthony Ryan Trilogy, Raven's Shadow. Highly recommended! I will have to tote the 3 books home for my sisters to read, but at 800+ pages each, I hope it does not put me over my baggage limit. When I travel to Canada I usually carry 2 laptops in my slim backpack and my clothes in an Oakley (trendy) gym bag. I love Oakley stuff; bags, shirts and shorts.
Tourists visiting Thailand are often concerned about pick pockets and I see them wearing their backpacks on their chest. I have never heard of anyone being picked in Bangkok and found Europe, especially France and Italy to be much worse. I carry my passport, phone and wallet in my Oakley shorts in the thigh pockets which buckle down and I feel their contents are quite safe.
My friend Shaun who is currently teaching in China needs a China break and will visit the April 22nd weekend. That will be my last weekend out in Bangkok for quite some time. We will have to make it a memorable weekend.
Today's song is: Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die .. Willie
I live in probably the most entertaining and exciting city in the world. Bangkok has about 10 million people who call it home but at any given time most folks guess about 12 million people are in the city. No one seems to know as census taking is a lost art with the Thai government. They are much more experienced at military coups having gone through 19 since 1947 (not all successful).
However, in 23 days I leave all that behind and leave downtown Bangkok for 4 months in a rural Thai village of approximately 300 people. I am cheating a bit and will spend 55 days of that time in Canada but nevertheless it will prove a challenge. Sleeping under a mosquito net and using the outdoor privy, along with no hot water is challenging for me.
I have one big cheat to help me. I have purchased an aircon unit and will be installing it in the bedroom we sleep in. That bedroom will also be my work area during the day. I will also have to install a drop ceiling as well. I will still lose some cooling out the wood shutters (no screens or glass) but c'est la vie. This is what air units look like in Thailand. The compressor sits outside on a concrete base. Usually each room in a condo or house would have one of these units installed. They sell for about $350.
I will also be shopping at Ikea for a single bed mattress topper to sleep on. We already have a queen size unit for a mattress we bought last year. Mattresses in Thailand are little better than a slab of wood. Thavorn and Jaidan will sleep on the queen and I will take the single as I toss and turn most nights. The bedroom is not large enough to accommodate Jaidan's crib and the queen sized bed.
I am committed to turning my 1 pack back into a six pack while I am in the village as there is a track around a man made lake that I will run around in the early morning before it gets too hot. There is also some rudimentary exercise equipment outdoors near the track. Far from ideal but then again, this Thai village looks like a shoot from a Chuck Norris or Stallone movie flick about saving soldiers missing in action in Vietnam.
I may even decide to shear my long hair and succumb to a buzz cut and requisite baseball cap. At times my rather hippie image gets a little hot in Thailand. No guarantees although it would make 2 of my 3 children happy.
Thavorn is busy arranging a truck to take our stuff from our downtown condo to the village which is just under 4 hours away. When we moved the last time, everything we owned fit into the back of a pickup truck. Since then we have accumulated 'toddler' stuff, such as a crib, bicycle, electric motorcycle, high seat and assorted toys and balls. I also have a large 34" monitor and the aircon unit as well. I think we will still fit in the pickup. The same man is moving us and he said he would charge us 3,500 Baht which is about $130. Labor in Thailand is very inexpensive :-) as the minimum wage is 300 Baht for a 12 hour day!
Tonight, Thavorn is busy boiling a chicken to make some chicken rice. She made some last week but the sauce was missing an ingredient that she discovered via a Google search. Not bad for someone who had never had a cell phone or used a computer 3 years ago when I met her. Thavorn loves to cook despite our condo only having a 2 burner stove. You learn to juggle. I have mentioned before that it is cheaper to eat out in Thailand rather than cook. That is, unless you go to the huge outdoor market where you can buy a whole chicken for 50 Baht a kilo. Not sure how much it sells for in Canada, but here in Bangkok you can be assured it was plucked same day. I have been to this market and they have the animals in cages and slaughter them on the spot as needed. Everything from chickens to pigs.
Jaidan does love chowing back on chicken legs. He is now 20 months old and has about 10 baby teeth. Here are some pics from tonight's dinner of chicken leg and sticky rice.
I hope you keep reading over the few months as I cover our move and adjust to life in the village. We will move back to Bangkok on September 1. The move back will be easy as we will have our own pickup truck by that time. Thavorn will be learning to drive and get her licence. She is very excited about buying a truck.
Today's song is: I Got a Feeling .. Black Eyed Peas
From time to time I like to recommend software. Jing is something I use daily, is free, and simply works exceeding well so I highly recommend it. I use it to capture portions of my screen. I have extended desktops and Jing handles it with aplomb. Jing can also create short 5 minute screen recordings but I seldom use it for that as Camtasia (also from TechSmith) does it much better, however it is a commercial product and fairly expensive.
https://www.techsmith.com/jing.html
Other free software I use extensively include:
NotePad++ a text editor that is so much better than notepad
https://notepad-plus-plus.org/
Notepad++ is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License. Based on the powerful editing component Scintilla, Notepad++ is written in C++ and uses pure Win32 API and STL which ensures a higher execution speed and smaller program size. By optimizing as many routines as possible without losing user friendliness, Notepad++ is trying to reduce the world carbon dioxide emissions. When using less CPU power, the PC can throttle down and reduce power consumption, resulting in a greener environment. Paint.net, a great drawing and paint program
http://www.getpaint.net/index.html
Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for PCs that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.
There is an Ikea in Bangkok and sometime ago Jaidan fell in love with Puppy, a stuffed toy dog. We bought it and brought it home and they have been inseparable ever since. Jaidan has lots of stuffed toys, big and small but Puppy has a special place for Jaidan. They sleep together everynight.
I started off at Robin Hood bar at 5:30 and stayed longer than I thought. My friend I were were trying to educate a Thai woman on the basics of saving a portion of your income every month and why it was important to have some money in the bank. Mostly a waste of time.
I headed out to Country Road about 8:30 but Thavorn did not arrive to join me until 10 ish. It seems Jaidan was not all that interested in falling asleep. By the time Thavorn joined me I was 2 sheets to the wind and we decided to walk down to Nana and Hillary 2 to give me a chance to sober up. Along the 25 min walk I notice a huge proliferation in tourists form the Middle East and Africa. However, Nana changed all that as it could be aptly named Punterville :-).
We arrived at Hillary 2 and were immediately recognized by one waitress despite not having been to Hillary in almost 2 years. She brought us to a great table in front of the band and we were greeted in mid song with 'Welcome back Jimmy and Pretty Girl!' They did not remember Thavorn's name but I am always remembered, mostly because, I think, the longish hair and my image. Great to be welcomed back. I bought a round for the 7 band members and sat back and enjoyed the next 3 hours.
We left about 1:30 as I was famished as I had not eaten anything since breakfast. We stopped at our favorite hole in the wall restaurant and I had Pad Thai Gai and Thavrn had noodle soup. We then flagged down a cab and arrived home at 2 am to find all 3 children wide awake watching TV. Jaidan had a big grin on his face. Needless to say, off he went to bed, closely followed by everyone else.
Today's song is: sung at Hillary 2 bar on Nana .. my favorite bar
Today is Wednesday so I am heading out for a beer with a goof friend at 6 pm to Robin Hood, a popular expat British pub at Soi 33 Sukhumvit, directly across from the new Dinosaur amusement park which appears to be losing popularity, judging from the crowds.
After a couple of hours I will head off to Country Road to wait for Thavorn who is putting Jaidan to sleep, hopefully around 8 pm and then she will join me. We are then heading off to Hillary 2 for some music and dancing. This will be our first time in our favorite bar for over a year.
Today's song is: Sympathy for the Devil ... Stones classic in England - 1990
a theme song for you Thai males
Today Thavorn is a little wistful. Last night her first husband died in a motorcycle crash. The carnage on Thai roadways is under reported but it is rampant. That is is one of the reason why I am purchasing a big pickup with many airbags. Drunk driving and a poor regard for safe driving and loss of life is a major reason for traffic deaths. Young Thai males without a future are often the casualties driven to careless with alcohol or yabba. He was 31 and the father of Tai and Dun who are currently visiting us. Tai and Dun hardly knew their father as Thavorn got tired of being beaten up when he drank or did drugs and left him long ago and refused him access to her children. Thavorn asked me for 1,000 baht to send to his village so that he could be cremated and put to rest by the village monks. As I said, somewhat wistful.
Last night we had our first rain in about 5 months and hopefully the drought is broken. April is Songkran and the advent of the rainy season in this part Thailand. Unfortunately it also gets stinky hot with very high humidity. The rain is frequent but usually lasts only 30 mins to an hour, similar to Florida in the summer.
I have started reading again. I really miss being hunkered down with a good fantasy story. Now that Tai and Dun are with us, occupying Jaidan I have more time to simply relax with a cup of coffee and a book.
Someone has opened up a dinosaur theme park in downtown Bangkok. I see it as somewhat tacky but the Thais are eating it up. Go figure. It will be interesting to see if it has lasting appeal. I can't see anyone visiting it twice, but there are over 10 million people in Bangkok.
I plan on getting back into coaching basketball during the summer of 2017 in Ontario. I have May-September available so if some organization is interested in getting a great coach during the summer months for a travelling team of player development I can be reached at CoachJimDale@gmail.com. Jaidan will be 3 by the summer of 2017 and I would like him to develop as a gym rat :-) similar to Jaime and Jordan.
In NCAA action, Kansas got beat by Villanova. Go figure, I thought Kansas had a lock on this year's madness. Perhaps the Tarheels will end their drought and make Larry happy :-)
Thavorn and I took advantage of her oldest 2 children and headed out at 9 pm for a night out in Bangkok. We lasted until 1:30. Will have to do better next time :-)
We decided to go to Soi Cowboy (of Hangover 2 Fame) to visit with her friend Tacky who works at Shark Bar but Tacky did not show for work that night. Not all that unusual for Tacky. We stayed for a beer and then decided to visit the Dollhouse to see how the new ownership is playing out. Most of the former girls had moved onto other bars but a couple of girls I knew were still there. Thavorn and I switched to vodka and red bulls and watched the show (both spectators and girls).
After one drink we headed out to Tilac bar but it was quiet so we headed off to Country Road to play some pool, but their was a long waiting list at the tables so we headed off to Lighthouse for a couple of more vodka and red bulls. At Lighthouse we recognized a girl we knew who had migrated from Dollhouse and invited her down for a drink. When asked about the Dollhouse she answered they were down for over a week and a girl has to work so here she was. The Lighthouse has a gorgeous array of friendly girls. Highly recommended. Our friend had just had her node done so Thavorn was quite interested in finding out the costs and what was involved with the procedure (pain, recovery, etc.)
We decided to move onto Crazy House as it is always full and lots of fun. Definitely over the top in terms of naughtiness. If you only do one bar in Bangkok, Crazy House is the one to do. We immediately bumped into Chocolate and one of her friends that is also lots of fun. We headed off upstairs where some free space existed. There we bumped into a Frenchman from France who was working out of Singapore and visits Bangkok as often as he can. He was definitely having fun and we joined in with him for the next 3 hours. Meeting people form around the world is definitely one of the perks of living in Bangkok. We haven't laughed as much in a long time.
We decided to head home around 1 am but we had the munchies so I grabbed a tuna sub at subways (open 24 hours) and Thavorn grabbed some street food. When we arrived home, all three children were fast asleep on the couch. Great to be out and about again!
